China Today magazine reports that China wants to forge ahead as a world science power. I agree that is a great objective; however, many Chinese students come to the United States for the most part to take science and tech courses, not to learn culture, art or language. Many then take their knowledge back to China.

Andrew Chi-Chih Yao, a pioneering Chinese-born computer scientist, earned PhDs at Harvard University and the University of Illinois. He became a U.S. citizen, but in 2015 renounced his citizenship to return to China with his knowledge gained in America to teach at the Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He is not alone. The Chinese government encourages this relocation to gain U.S. technology on the cheap! Technology and science are the only comparative advantages America has in today’s world. We should welcome foreign students to learn our culture, language and even medical science. However, high-tech knowledge that can be used for commercial advancement should not be shared with noncitizens simply for the price of tuition.

Alan Newman, Bellmore

Editor’s note: The writer is an adjunct instructor of economics at Farmingdale State College.

Identify wasteful Pentagon spending

It disturbs me that we are not talking about the July 27 vote in the House of Representatives to pass the 2018 military appropriations bill. I am disappointed that I could not find information about this action in Newsday.

But I am grateful that my representative in Congress, Kathleen Rice, was one of 192 who voted against this bill, which would raise the budget of the Pentagon by $68.1 billion, an 11 percent increase over fiscal 2017. At a time when the Pentagon has gone 27 years without a legally required audit, and an internal report has identified $125 billion on wasteful spending, we do not need to be throwing good money after bad.